Andrei Antonovich von Lembke belonged to that favored (by nature) tribe which in Russia, according to the records, numbers several hundred thousand, and which is itself perhaps unaware that within her, by its sheer mass, it constitutes a strictly organized union. Not an intentional or invented union, to be sure, but one existing of itself for the entire tribe, without words or agreements, as something morally obligatory, and consisting in the mutual support of all members of this tribe by each other, always, everywhere, and in whatever circumstances. Andrei Antonovich had the honor of being educated in one of those higher Russian institutions filled with young men from families well endowed with connections or wealth. The students of this institution were intended, almost immediately upon finishing their studies, to occupy rather significant positions in one of the departments of the government service. Andrei Antonovich had one uncle who was a lieutenant colonel in the engineers, and another who was a baker; yet he wormed his way into this higher school and met there quite a few similar tribesmen. He was a merry companion; quite dull as a student, but everyone liked him. And when, in the upper grades, many of the young men, predominantly Russians, learned to talk about rather lofty contemporary questions, and with an air as if they had only to wait till graduation and then they would resolve them all—Andrei Antonovich continued to occupy himself with the most innocent schoolboy pranks. He made everyone laugh, true, though only with quite unsophisticated escapades, cynical at most, but he set that as his goal. One time he would blow his nose somehow remarkably when the teacher addressed a question to him during a lecture—making both his comrades and the teacher laugh; another time he would present some cynical tableau vivant in the dormitory, to general applause; or he would play, solely on his nose (and quite skillfully), the overture to Fra Diavolo.[111] He was also distinguished by his deliberate slovenliness, which for some reason he found witty. In his very last year he took to scribbling little Russian verses. His own tribal language he knew quite ungrammatically, like many of his tribe in Russia. This propensity for verse brought him together with a schoolmate, gloomy and as if downtrodden by something, the son of some poor general, one of the Russians, who was regarded at the institute as a great future writer. The latter treated him patronizingly. But it so happened that three years after graduation, this gloomy comrade, who had abandoned his career for the sake of Russian literature and, as a consequence, was already parading around in torn boots, his teeth chattering from the cold, wearing a summer coat in the depths of autumn, unexpectedly met by chance, near the Anichkov Bridge, his former protégé "Lembka," as everyone, by the way, had called him at school. And what do you think? He did not even recognize him at first sight and stopped in surprise. Before him stood an impeccably dressed young man, with wonderfully tended side-whiskers of a reddish hue, wearing a pince-nez, patent-leather boots, the freshest gloves, in a full-cut overcoat from Charmeur's, and with a briefcase under his arm. Lembke treated his comrade benignly, gave him his address, and invited him to call on him some evening. It also turned out that he was no longer "Lembka," but von Lembke. The comrade did call on him, however, if only out of spite. At the stairway, rather unattractive, and certainly not the main one, though laid with red baize, he was met and questioned by a doorkeeper. A bell rang out upstairs. But instead of the riches the visitor expected to meet, he found his "Lembka" in a side room, a very small one, dark and decrepit-looking, divided in two by a large dark green curtain, furnished with very decrepit, though soft, dark green furniture, and with dark green shades on its narrow and high windows. Von Lembke lodged with some very distant relative, a general, whose protégé he was. He met his guest amiably, was serious and gracefully polite. They also talked of literature, but within decent limits. A servant in a white tie brought some weakish tea with small, round, dry biscuits. The comrade, out of spite, asked for seltzer water. It was served, but with some delay, and Lembke seemed embarrassed at calling the servant an extra time and giving him an order. However, he himself asked whether the visitor wanted a bite to eat, and was obviously pleased when the latter declined and finally left. The simple fact was that Lembke was starting his career and was sponging on the general, a fellow tribesman, but an important one.
At that time he was sighing after the general's fifth daughter, and this seemed to be reciprocated. Nevertheless, when the time came, Amalia was given in marriage to an old German factory owner, an old comrade of the old general's. Andrei Antonovich did not weep much, but glued together a theater made of paper. The curtains rose, the actors came out, made gestures with their hands; the audience sat in their boxes, the orchestra mechanically moved their bows across their fiddles, the conductor waved his baton, and in the stalls gentlemen and officers clapped their hands. It was all made of paper, all designed and assembled by von Lembke himself; he sat over this theater for half a year. The general purposely organized an intimate little evening, the theater was brought out for display, all five of the general's daughters, the newly wedded Amalia included, her factory owner, and many young girls and women with their Germans, attentively examined and praised the theater; then there was dancing. Lembke was very pleased and soon consoled.
Years passed and his career got established. He always served in prominent places, and always under his tribesmen's command, and in the end he served his way up to quite a significant rank, compared with his age. He had long wanted to marry, and had long been cautiously on the lookout. In secret from the authorities, he sent a novella to a magazine, but it was not published. To make up for that he glued together an entire railway station with a train, and again it came out as a most successful little thing: people left the station with suitcases and bags, children and dogs, and got into the cars. Conductors and porters walked about, the bell rang, the signal was given, and the train started on its way. He sat for a whole year over this clever piece. But all the same he had to get married. The circle of his acquaintances was quite wide, primarily in the German world; but he also moved in Russian spheres, through his superiors, of course. Finally, when he had already turned thirty-eight, he also received an inheritance. His uncle, the baker, died and left him a bequest of thirteen thousand. Now it was just a matter of the right position. Mr. von Lembke, despite the rather high cut of the sphere in which he served, was a very modest man. He would have been quite satisfied with some independent little government post, with being in charge of the delivery of government firewood, or some such plum, and that for the rest of his life. But here, instead of some anticipated Mina or Ernestina, all at once Yulia Mikhailovna turned up. His career immediately rose another degree in prominence. The modest and precise von Lembke felt that he, too, was capable of ambition.
Yulia Mikhailovna owned two hundred souls, by the old way of reckoning, and, besides that, brought big connections with her. Von Lembke, on the other hand, was handsome, and she was already past forty. Remarkably, he did really fall in love with her little by little, as he felt himself more and more a fiancé. On the morning of their wedding day he sent her some verses. She liked it all very much, even the verses: forty is no joke. Soon he was awarded a certain rank and a certain decoration, and then he was appointed to our province.